undered into such blunders that the saying has come down to us:
Blessed are the people that have no history, for they shall not be
misrepresented.

Strictly speaking, of course, every man has history, such as it is, and
the beatitude was intended to refer only to those whose history has
escaped the attention of the muses as that of Arethusa did for many ages.
We know enough, however, to guess that her exile cannot have been passed
in solitude and, if only we had her Visitors' Book complete, we should
have something that would keep many learned persons busy. We get an
early glimpse of her on her underground journey, passing near enough to
the dread abode of Pluto to overhear some scandal about

That fair field
Of Enna where Proserpine, gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis
Was gathered.

She did not fully understand, but the nymph Cyane, who dwelt in another
fountain up the river Anapo and remembered the affair, gave her full
particulars; she made a mental note of it all and imparted the
information to Ceres, who came weeping and telling her grief as she
wandered the world in search of her lost daughter.

Venus, in one or other of her manifestations, was and is a welcome
visitor; she rises from the sea as constantly as Arethusa falls into it,
and some little time ago gave the nymph, for a keepsake, a portrait of
herself as Venere Anadiomene done in marble. I know enough about
painting not to be afraid to own that I know nothing about it, whereas
with regard to sculpture my ignorance is so unfathomable that I can have
no hesitation in saying what I think about this statue, which is that it
is a pity it has been broken. If only it had its head and its right arm
it would be an entry of which the owner of any visitors' book might well
be proud. It is now in the museum of Ortigia, where there is also a
marble portrait of Cupid as he comes riding into the Great Harbour
mounted on his dolphin's back.

Diana, sailing through the night, seated in her silver chair, comes
regularly to Ortigia. Arethusa always receives her with the respect and
honour due to her Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair. Some centuries
ago she built her a temple with Doric columns and everything handsome
about it; she put inside it a statue of the goddess, and the people
forsook their old deity, whatever she was called, and went to the new
temple worshipping Diana.

Phoenician traders came and did